NEW YORK, NY.- Tanya Bonakdar Gallery announced the opening of its new Los Angeles gallery location at 1010 N. Highland Avenue.

The opening of the gallery in Los Angeles signals an expansion of the gallery's commitment to promoting it's artists, offering a platform for important exhibitions of new work by artists who do not already have gallery representation in Los Angeles. Opening in July, the first exhibition in the space will be with the LAbased artist Charles Long, who is currently featured in the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. exhibition. The second LA gallery exhibition will open in September with Olafur Eliasson, who is currently the subject of a major exhibition at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles. The third exhibition, opening in January 2019, will be with Tomás Saraceno, who has never before exhibited in Los Angeles. Subsequent exhibitions at the Los Angeles gallery will include presentations with Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Mark Manders, Sarah Sze, Rivane Neuenschwander, Ernesto Neto, Susan Philipsz, Haim Steinbach, Martin Boyce, Sandra Cinto, and Mark Dion, among others.

"The contemporary arts community of Los Angeles is unique and unparalleled, from its universities, to its resident artists, to its museums and private foundations to its individual patrons and supporters. We wish to contribute and engage with this community by exhibiting our unique program and exceptional stable of artists. Many of our artists have never shown in galleries in this city, yet desire the particular context of the gallery to do so. Just as the program in New York is driven by the passion, creativity and vision of the artists we represent, the gallery in Los Angeles will likewise offer a new and exciting platform for these artists to create and exhibit.” — Tanya Bonakdar

For two and a half decades, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery has been an artist-driven gallery, presenting a rigorous program of ambitious exhibitions by an international stable of artists. Since its early years, the gallery has launched and fostered the careers of a key group of artists that include Uta Barth, Martin Boyce, Sandra Cinto, Mat Collishaw, Olafur Eliasson, Sabine Hornig, Teresa Hubbard/Alexander Birchler, Carla Klein, Charles Long, Rita Lundqvist, Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Susan Philipsz, Peggy Preheim, Analia Saban, Tomás Saraceno, Hannah Starkey, Dirk Stewen, Thomas Scheibitz and Nicole Wermers, providing their first solo exhibitions in New York and, for many, their respective debuts in the United States. With a growing roster that includes important figures like Phil Collins, Mark Dion, Meschac Gaba, Mark Manders, Haim Steinbach, Sarah Sze, and Gillian Wearing, the gallery continues to support the careers and work of its artists in dialogue with audiences and institutions around the world. More recently the gallery has added exciting new additions to the program, including established artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, as well as Agnieszka Kurant, Lisa Oppenheim, Slavs and Tatars, and Liu Shiyuan.

Throughout the years, the gallery has been committed to bringing the artists’ practices beyond the walls of the gallery. Working in collaboration with museums, curators, institutions and public art organizations, the gallery has helped to organize and present major public projects, such as Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls in 2009, Ernesto Neto’s anthropodino at the Park Avenue Armory in 2009, Eliasson’s The Weather Project created for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2003, Tomás Saraceno’s Cloud City on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012, Charles Long’s major outdoor sculptures Pet Sounds at Madison Square Park in 2012, and Susan Philipsz immersive and haunting soundscape shown at the Kassel Hauptbahnhof train yard for dOCUMENTA 13 in 2012, among them. More recently, similar highlights include Mark Manders' permanent outdoor commission at the Walker Art Center unveiled last year, and Phil Collin’s month-long project Bring Down the Walls, ingeniously combining house music with a program to deal with the issues of mass incarceration. Upcoming later this month Ernesto Neto will transform the Zurich train station into a captivating environment inspired by the Brazilian rainforest — featuring a hand-made crocheted canopy, reaching 66 feet high — providing a space for public programming and a place for travelers to come together and meditate.

Gallery artists have collectively represented seven different countries in Venice Biennales; these include Ernesto Neto (Brazil, 2001) and Siobhán Hapaska (Ireland, 2001), Olafur Eliasson (Denmark, 2003), Thomas Scheibitz (Germany, 2005), Martin Boyce (Scotland, 2009), Sarah Sze (USA 2013), Mark Manders (the Netherlands 2013) and Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler (Switzerland, 2017). Many of the artists have also been awarded fellowships; Uta Barth and Sarah Sze have both received the MacArthur Fellowships, whereas Martin Boyce, Susan Philipsz and Gillian Wearing have been awarded the prestigious Turner Prize.

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery has put together a great team to lay the foundation of the LA project. The gallery is pleased to announce Mary Leigh Cherry as Director and Lia Trinka-Browner as Gallery Manager in Los Angeles. Combining experience in Los Angeles at some of the most exciting institutions in the city over the past decade, Cherry and Trinka-Browner will contribute vast knowledge and experience within the cultural landscape of the city to the gallery.